Is the HOA or the homeowner responsible for a roof leak or water damage in a condo?

Boards and owners talk past each other on this question because they are answering different things. The location of the damage, a ceiling stain in a unit, tells you nothing about who is responsible for it. The source of the water is what actually decides the question, and it is a separate fact that has to be traced before anyone can say who pays.

If the water came from a common element, a building roof, a shared vertical pipe or riser serving multiple units, an exterior wall or window that is the association's structural responsibility, the loss is normally the association's, both for the repair and for the insurance claim. If the water came from something inside the unit boundary that serves only that unit, a supply line to a dishwasher, a toilet, a water heater the owner installed, the loss is normally the unit owner's. The recorded declaration is what actually draws this line, and in most condominium declarations the roof, exterior walls, and shared plumbing risers are common elements regardless of which valuation basis (bare-walls, single-entity, or all-in) the master policy uses for interior finishes.

The source rule has one major exception that catches boards off guard: an association that knew about a failing roof, a deteriorating waterproofing membrane, or a deferred plumbing repair and did not act can be liable for the interior damage that neglect eventually causes, even though the declaration's valuation basis would otherwise leave that interior repair to the owner. Several states, including California under Civil Code section 4775, set the association as responsible for repairing and maintaining the common area by default unless the declaration provides otherwise, and that maintenance duty is separate from, and sits underneath, the insurance question.

This is why a single leak can produce two different legal theories at once: a straightforward insurance-coverage question (whose policy pays for what) and a negligence question (did the association fail a maintenance duty that made the loss worse or made it happen at all). A board that repairs the roof promptly when a leak is reported has a very different exposure than one that let three years of owner complaints go unaddressed before the roof finally failed.

Once the source is established, the coverage side is mechanical. The association's master policy responds to the common-element source: the roof, the shared riser, the structural components, under whatever valuation basis the declaration sets. The unit owner's HO-6 policy responds to everything the master policy does not reach: personal property, betterments and upgrades, loss of use, and, critically, the owner's own plumbing and fixtures if that is where the water started.

The two policies frequently open separate claims on the same event. A shared riser failure that soaks two units below can trigger a master-policy claim for the building structure and common areas, plus each affected owner's HO-6 claim for their own contents and any interior finish the master policy's valuation basis leaves to them. Neither policy is wrong to deny the piece that is not theirs; the declaration and the source of the water are what tell each carrier which piece is its own.

Do not assume responsibility from where the damage shows up. Get a plumber's or roofer's written finding on where the water actually originated before either side commits to a position, because that document is what both carriers and, if it comes to it, a court will rely on. Pull the declaration's definitions of common element, limited common element, and unit boundary, and read the maintenance article alongside the insurance article, since the two are often treated as separate questions but actually answer the same dispute together.

File both potentially applicable claims promptly, the association's master-policy claim and the affected owner's HO-6 claim, rather than waiting to see who wins the responsibility argument first, since claim reporting deadlines run regardless of how the underlying dispute resolves. A board that documents its own maintenance response time on common elements, and that communicates the source finding to affected owners quickly, resolves far more of these disputes without a lawsuit than one that lets the argument over whose fault it is delay the actual repair.